Reminder to Politicians: That Microphone May Still Be Live

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Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was caught on an open microphone offering to help Secretary of State John Kerry following his testimony at a Senate hearing on Ukraine assistance.Published OnMarch 14, 2014CreditCreditWin Mcnamee/Getty Images

By David S. Joachim

March 14, 2014

WASHINGTON — Senator Lindsey Graham has witnessed enough congressional hearings to know: If you want to have a side conversation, cover that microphone.

Mr. Graham, a top Senate Republican, seemed to forget that lesson on Thursday when he was caught on an open mike offering to help Secretary of State John Kerry cajole Speaker John A. Boehner into supporting an expansion of loans to Ukraine through the International Monetary Fund.

“Hey, John, good job,” he told Mr. Kerry, referring to the secretary’s just-finished testimony on the State Department budget. “Let me know what I can do to help you with Boehner.”

So, it seems, Democrats and Republicans can work together after all. They just cannot do it publicly.

The episode recalls Michael Kinsley’s famous adage that a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth. In this age of ubiquitous digital electronics, then, open-mike gaffes are becoming about as common as the iPhone.

Of course, when these same politicians know the microphone is on, they revert to form. Just a few months ago, Mr. Graham was bashing the “failure” of Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry to improve relations with Russia, citing it as evidence of a bankrupt foreign policy. No one called it a gaffe.